


Isolation

by Marijke_Rose



Series: Whumptober 2020 [8]
Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Day 8, Isolation, Whumptober 2020, no.8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:28:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26918860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marijke_Rose/pseuds/Marijke_Rose
Summary: Well... what has Tak been up to since her visit to Earth?Also, sorry, I am a day late with it and I’m going to be late with today’s too.
Series: Whumptober 2020 [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948705
Kudos: 7
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Isolation

The low-energy warning light flashed incessantly on the display as gloved claws danced over the controls and set in a course for a nearby planet.

Isolation. It seemed to be the one constant and recurrence in the almost-Invader’s life.

First on Devastis after that incompetant defective who dared to call himself an invader - Zim - caused a power outage on the entire half of the planet. She had spent days trapped inside the testing chamber until a rescue party had found and freed her from her cold prison.

Then again on Planet Dirt, where she had been assigned after the Control Brain refused to let her retake the test. Having too much time to herself, as the janitorial drones there were each assigned to their own lonely, stinky, rubbish-filled sector of the planet with only mountains of rotting, spoiling refuse for company.

With all that undisturbed time and a veritable buffet of parts at claw, she had managed to build her own SIR and her own ship,as well as work out an intricate plan to get back in the good graces of her Tallests.

That plan had been thwarted by the aforementioned incompetant invader and his startlingly  _ competent _ allies on that stinkball planet of meat and weenies. 

And now in some far leg of the universe that not even her escape pod’s computer recognised, she was alone again. In hiding, actually. After her failure on Earth, she could hardly show her face in the Empire again. She could not bear to stand before her Tallests as a failure.

In her partially self-imposed exile, she was lost. Alone again. She had no idea how to get back even if she had wanted to. And they wouldn’t be looking for a lowly janitorial drone either. She doubted her former boss even cared that she was missing (she hadn’t exactly been his most beloved of workers, to put it lightly).

As she touched her claw to the cold, hard window of her pod, drifting by asteroids and space dust as it approached an alien planet, that knowledge made her hate that she hadn’t made invader all the more. An invader was valuable to the Empire. Expendable in their missions, true, but valuable nonetheless.

  
  


The display beeped, alerting her that it was time to begin the landing sequence, so she sat back down and activated the safety field. It was going to be a bumpy ride…

  
  


...And hot, as corroborated by the smoking outer hull as the pod’s door opened. She took a deep breath of fresh air before stepping out onto the rubble where her pod had made a crater. With her PAK legs, she climbed out of it and looked around.

Full of lush vegetation and capable of supporting Irken life, the choice had not been luck. It was the first planet the sensors had found that could provide an energy source or, if that didn’t work out, become her new home until she found another means of getting off this alien rock.

The air was muggy, but it was warm and the smells were, thankfully, not repulsive like the ones on Zim’s little blue planet. She just hoped the indiginous life forms weren’t too hostile. Knowing her entry would not have gone unnoticed (and armed with a little scanner) she took the first step in her journey to find a suitable shelter before nightfall.

_ ‘Right,’ _ she thought as she trudged along through some muck she had failed to notice through the thick, mossy vegetation covering the planet’s surface.  _ ‘I certainly picked the right destination for a holiday.’ _

The muck stuck to her boots and made her already salty mood worse. ”I suppose it’s a fitting place for a failure to hide in shame like an Earth puppy with her tail between her legs,” she grumbled out loud as the viscous substance took her boot hostage. “Zim should be the one stuck out here...” She took hold of the brim and yanked at the fabric. “...And I should be presenting my gift to the Tallest, not…” She paused to get a better grip on the stubborn clothing. “...Out here wasting my time on this…” It unexpectedly gave and she fell right into the muck. She growled in frustration. “THIS ABHORRED PLANET!” Now she was wet, dirty, and angry.

It was as unrelenting with her as it had been with her boot and her struggles seemed to only be making it worse.

“It should be  _ Zim,” _ she said in a forlorn voice as she gave up for the moment to consider her predicament.

With great effort and the sacrifice of a glove, she managed to slowly free one hand. “Bullocks, that’s what this is,” she muttered as she inspected the substance that clung to her skin and claws. It was worse than bubble gum

However, if she moved slowly… Yeah, that did it. She had freed the other hand.

She looked around for something to grab onto, but the only thing in reach were a few thin strands of grasslike weeds that would, in no way, be of help to her. She needed another plan.

Her PAK opened and her four spider-legs came out. She planted them in strategic spots around her, then lifted.

Slowly… slowly… slowly but surely, she began to rise out of the mucky lake. Within minutes she was dangling just above it.

“Phew.” She looked ahead. It was hard to tell how much of the ground was muck and how much of it was solid, but she could see a clear, rocky area about 50 metres ahead. That would be much easier to move across.

She slowly raised one spider-leg to test how much resistance the thin metal would meet. As she hoped, it was minimal and it easily came out. She placed it back down a bit farther ahead and made sure it had a hold before she raised another out and did the same.

With slow, exaggeratedly deliberate movements that had her looking more like a stoned spider than an Irken, she made her way slowly across the gooey lake.

When she finally felt rock-hard ground beneath her legs, she was elated. She hurried the rest of the way until the tips no longer sunk at all. Then she lowered herself to the ground.

She turned back to look at where she’d come and shook her head. She hoped there wouldn’t be a lot of those or else she was going to be out all night trying to find shelter and something her scanner identified as safe for consumption.

After a brief pause on a large rock, Tak got up and resumed her trek. She could tell by the way the air was cooling and how the light was dimming that there wasn’t going to be much more time until nightfall.

  
  


By the time she found a suitable shelter for the night, in the form of a small cave, she was tired. Too tired to look for food. She still had some rations in her PAK. It would suffice for the evening, so she could save that for the next morning.

Using her PAK legs, she rolled a large rock in front of the entrance and looked around for a spot to rest. Roughing it on a cold, hard, and rocky floor didn’t bother her. It was an improvement from her quarters back on Dirt. (Even if they weren’t right smack IN the mountains of garbage, there was no escaping the smell short of leaving the planet.)

  
  


Isolation. It wasn’t something she was unaccustomed to, but it wasn’t something she liked. This was going to be a most unpleasant self-imposed exile.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope I did Tak justice! I haven’t written her as much as I have the other characters,so I don’t know.


End file.
